A Tolkien Miscellany

[Starbrow]

Has anyone read A Tolkien Miscellany. I'm reading his translation of "Pearl" in it, but I'm having a really hard time understanding it. Can anyone out there help me?

[jallan]

You don’t explain what your difficulty is.

My own copy is in a volume called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Pearl and Sir Orfeo which contains an introduction by Christopher Tolkien containing commentary on all three poems from his father’s notes and various other writings.

There is a translation of Pearl with some commentary by Vernard Eller at A Pearl ... for the Brokenhearted (http://www.hccentral.com/eller10/index.html). Sometimes a different translation helps.

There is a short introduction at Sources and Metres of "Pearl" (http://www.bartleby.com/211/1501.html)

Most helpful in explaining the fine details is a very full commentary at Pearl's Vision (http://www.holycross.edu/departments/english/sstanbur/dcpagano/pearlhomepage.html). The links to discussion of the different sections of the poem are at the side.

The original Middle English text is available at Pearl (http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?type=header&byte=11449275). That is useful in providing the exact words that Tolkien is translating into modern English.

[Starbrow]

jallan

Thanks for the links. I haven't looked at it for a while. I started to get confused when it was talking about the Queen of Heaven. I thought it referred to Mary, but the more I read, the less sure I became.

[vinyachilion]

my favorite story in the book is farmer giles of ham. i really like the dragon in there and the way the characters are set up.
its like a classic story. the farmer starts out as a lowly pesent and in the end becomes a king after he enslaves the dragon,